Does Edwards Remain Reformed?

Edwards’s melodic trinitarian participation, that is, his overall doctrine of grace as participation in divine fullness, is not added from outside his Reformed heritage. It is a modification; but it is part of the doctrinal development that has always marked the Reformed movement.

This does not mean that his view will be uncontroversial for proponents of Reformed theology.

Jonathan Edwards and Deification: Reconciling Theosis and the Reformed Tradition, by James R. Salladin

Has Edwards modified, or has he jettisoned, his Reformed heritage? If not jettisoned but modified, has he brought in an appendage from outside of his tradition, or has he extended that which is inherent in his tradition? Yes, I offered Salladin’s conclusion up front. How did he get there?

It is clear that recent interest in soteriological participation has grown out of engagement with the Eastern Orthodox tradition (this certainly has been my experience). One result of this: when we hear similar ideas from western / Reformed theologians, do we consider that these are merely imports from the East?

Within Reformed thought in particular there is debate as to the propriety of emphasizing soteriological participation at all.

This has also been my experience – not necessarily from overt rejection of the idea of participation, but from the extreme emphasis on the idea that one can do nothing for one’s salvation. On the one hand, this is clearly true, but it is not completely true: one can do nothing, but this doesn’t mean one is freed from doing anything. Easy believe-ism is a dangerously false idea.

May one, in some sense, call [Edwards’ doctrine of grace as communication and participation in divine fullness] a Reformed doctrine of grace? More boldly: a Reformed doctrine of theosis?

Salladin will not attempt to fully answer this question here, but he offers some considerations. He offers that Edwards made three key modifications to his Reformed heritage and that these modifications are sympathetic developments of Reformed doctrine.

These doctrinal modifications are: the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of grace, and the doctrine of creation’s end. The modifications were made to show how these three doctrines relate to each other – in other words, to synchronize these doctrines and not in order to deny the heritage.

Edwards modified the doctrine of the Trinity to show its soteriological import; he modified the doctrine of grace to show its trinitarian foundation; he modified the doctrine of creation’s end to show the centrality of these first two doctrines.

All three of these doctrines unite to each other around the idea of soteriological participation, or grace as communication and participation in divine fullness. These modifications were aimed at a sympathetic development of Reformed tradition and not as a denial or departure from it.

Modifying the Trinity

What is striking about Edwards doctrine of the Trinity is that he framed it as a foundation for his theory of soteriology. This isn’t new in Christian theology and tradition, but it was called into question in Edwards’ day.

By Edwards day, English dissenters could view the Trinity as an optional interpretation of Scripture rather than a fundamental dogma.

Ministers could be ordained without subscribing to the trinitarian formula. This was because the view was held that the Trinity rested not only on the Scriptures but also on the historic creeds. From here, the Unitarianism of the eighteenth century grew very important. It was in this environment that Edwards was writing regarding the Trinity – that he did so at this time and in this place is what made his work on the Trinity so remarkable.

Edwards was not alone – his Puritan heritage carried a strong tradition of emphasizing the soteriological import of the Trinity – this was true even one hundred years before Edwards. John Owen was one such example, writing…

“Our communion, then, with God consisteth in his communication of himself unto us, with our returnal unto him of that which he requireth and accepteth, flowing from that union which in Jesus Christ we have with him.”

This relationship of us with God is entirely based on the doctrine of the Trinity. This is seen further in the Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration, with the latter being, in large part, a Congregationalist version of the former; there is near verbal identity between the two.

For example, the Savoy Declaration adds a specifically soteriological application for the doctrine of the Trinity:

“Which doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God, and comfortable dependence upon him.”

By the time of Edwards, this interest may have atrophied, but it was clearly an accepted doctrine within the Puritan and Reformed tradition. Certainly, the connection to Owens is clear, as the statement by Owens could just as easily have been written by Edwards.

Edwards does make two modifications: his view of real attributes, and his assertion that the Holy Spirit is the gift purchased in salvation. Yet both of these modifications are aimed at demonstrating the soteriological import of the Trinity. In other words, both are aimed at the Puritan theological aim.

These modifications have been covered in detail before, but I will summarize these again here: God’s attributes can be summed up in God (the Father), God’s understanding (the Son, or Logos), and God’s will or agapē (the Holy Spirit). The view is controversial, but not without merit – Salladin sees that Edwards view unites two traditional spheres of discourse regrinding the doctrine of God: His essence, and His person.

Modifying Grace

Yet this modification is just a stepping stone to the second modification: the Holy Spirit doesn’t only apply the saving gift, but is the gift itself. The Holy Spirit both loves and is God’s love. The Spirit is the love given.

God is no longer the giver of salvation alone; God is now the gift itself.

A formidable modification, but one that presses forward the trajectory already set by Puritan canon, as seen in Owen and others. By making the Spirit not only the giver, but also the gift, Edwards committed himself to the view of uncreated grace. This was confirmed in the Augustinian tradition, but was modified beginning in the Middle Ages.

For Edwards, grace is the Holy Spirit.

God, one of the three persons of the Trinity, unites Himself to the soul of the creature. In this way, the human loves with God’s own love!

This is uncreated activity working through created beings. In positing this, Edwards modified his own tradition.

Whereas traditional language considered that God produces grace, Edwards saw grace as a communication rather than a production.

This modification grows directly out of the first: Edwards’ soteriological modification of the Trinity results in Edwards’ modification of grace. Yet none of this came from outside of Edwards’ tradition: in all of it, he built on his Reformed, Puritan forebears.

Modifying Creation’s End

“What is the chief end of man?”

“The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

This from the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Of this, Edwards asks: What is a chief end? What is God’s glory? How is God glorified in Himself? How is God glorified in creation? What does it mean to enjoy God? How does the enjoyment of God relate to God’s glory?

Edwards’ answers flow from his first two doctrinal modifications, that of the Trinity and that of grace. To make a long story short:

God’s end in creation is to glorify himself by communicating his own internal glory, termed the divine fullness, to intelligent creatures, such that they join in the Trinity’s self-delight. It is nothing more, nor less, than Edwards’ trinitarianism and doctrine of grace as participation in divine fullness, applied to creation’s teleology.

Put differently, it is a trinitarian answer to the Shorter Catechism’s first question.

Again, divine fullness is not God’s essence. God’s essence is not communicable.

So, what of an alternate reading of Edwards’ End of Creation? Salladin considers the work of Sang Hyun Lee. I will not dive deeply into this, but will note:

Lee asserts that God’s self-communication of fullness includes the act of creation, rather than seeing God’s communication of divine fullness as the uniquely telic goal of God’s act of creation.

Salladin pushes back: Lee’s united, integrated view cannot account for the discontinuity between created nature and divine grace. Further it isn’t clear that Lee’s view can adequately account for Edwards’ distinction between divine essence and divine fullness.

There have been further essays questioning Lee’s account. Basically, if Lee is correct, it suggests that Edwards jettisoned his Reformed theological orthodoxy. From this, other scholars have come to Lee’s defense.

I will leave this alternative and controversy here.

Conclusion

Salladin has presented Edwards as modifying three key Reformed doctrines, while remaining within the Reformed tradition. The details of this debate are above me, however what is valuable is that Edwards, while building on his Reformed predecessors, has come to a view of participation not unlike that known in the Eastern Orthodox Church. At least, this is how Salladin and other theologians see it.

For me, a fulsome definition of salvation must mean something more than escaping hell and entering heaven. There is a life to live, there is the transformation to experience and participate in; we are to grow like Christ.

However one wants to explain this, whatever word one chooses to apply to this, this calling is inherent in what is means to be saved.